King Abdullah chairs Cabinet meeting in Taif

July 20, 2009

The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz began the weekly Cabinet meeting at Al-Hawiyyah Palace in Taif today with a briefing on his most recent consultations with foreign officials. These included face-to-face meetings with Bahraini King Hamad Al-Khalifah, Malaysian Prime Minister Mohammed Najeeb Abdulrazzak, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, and U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization Director General Jack Dhuyoof.

The Cabinet condemned the bombings of two hotels in Jakarta, Indonesia over the weekend, stressing the importance of mobilizing international efforts to fight terrorism. The ministers also listened to a report on the Non-Aligned Movement Summit, which concluded in Egypt last week with a final declaration calling for greater support of the Palestinian cause.

The Cabinet briefly discussed the SR 45 billion [$12.03 billion] worth of crucial projects recently launched by King Abdullah in Madinah and Yanbu.

After reviewing its agenda items, the Cabinet authorized the Interior Minister to discuss a draft agreement with Russia on cooperation in anti-drug trafficking efforts and approved the “Abu Dhabi Unified Regulation (Law) on Fighting Human Trafficking in the Gulf Cooperation Council,” which was issued by the Supreme Council of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) at its 27th session in Riyadh on 18/19-11-1427 H.

The Cabinet approved the appointment of Ahmad Ala’bdilqadir as Assistant Deputy President of the Bureau for Monitoring Performance at the General Auditing Bureau (15th rank); Khalid Ala’isa as Consultant Civil Engineer at the Ministry of Interior (14th rank); and Mohamamd Al-Furaih as Deputy Director General of the National Center for Computers at the Central Department of Statistics & Information (14th rank).